Learning Disability Nurse at Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust

The job at Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust

Learning disability nurses work to improve or maintain a person's physical and mental health, reduce barriers to independent living, and support people to lead fulfilling lives, acting as educators, advocates and care coordinators. They work alongside GPs, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, teachers, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists and physiotherapists. Learning disability nurses practise in residential and nursing homes, people's own homes, schools, specialist units such as prisons, GP practices and hospitals. People with learning disabilities and their families, across the lifespan and across health, social care and education settings.

At a mental health trust such as Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust, that work means a mental health caseload across inpatient units, community mental health teams, crisis services and, in most organisations, child and adolescent and secure services. Rotations here tend to move between inpatient and community teams rather than between body systems, and supervision arrangements matter more than in almost any other setting. Across the profession as a whole, learning disability nurses work in settings including residential and nursing homes, people's own homes, schools, specialist units, including prisons and GP practices — an organisation of this type will run some of those services and not others, which is why two posts with the same job title in the same city can be very different jobs.

Pay is not an employer decision. Agenda for Change is negotiated nationally and set separately in each of the four nations, so Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust pays band 5 exactly what every other NHS employer in England pays it: £32,073 at the bottom of the band on the 2026/27 scale. What genuinely differs between two employers is the caseload, how rotations are structured, how much protected time you get for supervision and continuing professional development, how much band 6 progression is built into the establishment, and how far you travel between sites. Those are the questions worth asking at interview.

This page states no figure specific to Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust because none is published in the open data. When the workforce and staff survey feeds include this organisation, the establishment size, the response rate and the theme scores will appear above.